* * * * *
Tucked into the secret cubby, Regis rubbed his chubby hands over his face, as if trying to brush away his mounting fear. He glanced up often to the light streaming in through a neatly-blown hole in the solid stone wall of his hiding place. Regis had heard the blast, and knew it to be the trapped wax door. Apparently, one of the projectiles had been deflected—off an orc skull, he hoped—and had rocketed up high, cracking through the outer stone wall of the cubby and splitting the air barely an inch in front of the poor halfling's face. Every so often, Regis glanced across at the other, far more substantial stone wall, where the projectile, a metal sling bullet, could be seen embedded in the rock.
The halfling fought hard to keep his breathing steady, realizing that the last thing he could afford was for orcs to discover him. And they had come up to the ledge, he knew, for he could hear their grunting and their large feet slapping on the stone behind him.
"Five hours," he silently mouthed, for that was the planned pause before the counterattack. He knew that he should try to get some sleep, then, but he could smell the orcs nearby and simply couldn't relax enough to keep his eyes closed for any length of time.
* * * * *
The dwarves gathered around Bruenor could hear the tentativeness in his every word.
"But will it keep on rolling?" the dwarf king asked the engineers standing beside a modified version of a "juicer," a heavy rolling ram designed to squish the blood out of orcs and the like by pressing them against a wall. Unlike the typical Battlehammer juicers, which were really no more than a cylinder of stone on a thick axle with poles behind so the dwarves could rush it along, the new contraption had been given a distinct personality. Carved wooden likeness of dwarves upon battle boars, the handiwork of Pikel Bouldershoulder, stood out in front of the main body of the one-ton battering ram, and below them was a skirt of metal, fanning out like a ship's prow. An "orc-catcher," Nanfoodle had named it, designed to wedge through the throng of enemies like a spear tip, throwing them aside.
The whole of the thing was set upon well-greased metal wheels, lined in a thin, sharpened ridge that would simply cut through any bodies the catcher missed. Handles had been set for twenty dwarves to push, and as an added bonus, Nanfoodle had geared the boar-riding statues to an offset on the axle, so that the six wooden dwarf «riders» would seem to be charging, leaping over each other in a rolling motion.
"They'll stop it eventually," Nanfoodle reasoned. "More by the pile of their dead, I would guess, than by any concerted effort to halt the thing. Once the dwarves get this contraption rolling, it would take a team of giants to slow it!"
Bruenor nodded and kept moving, studying the device from every conceivable angle.
He had to keep moving, he knew. He had to keep studying and thinking of the present crisis.
His two children had been hurt.
* * * * *
Wincing with every movement, Wulfgar swung his wolf-hide cloak across his shoulders and managed to bring his right arm back far enough to get behind the mantle and wrap it around him, covering his strong chain shirt of interlocking mithral links.
"What're ye doing?" Delly Curtie asked him, coming back into the room after settling Colson in her bed.
Wulfgar looked back at her as if the answer should be obvious.
"Cordio said ye wasn't to be going back today," Delly reminded him. "He said ye're too hurt."
Wulfgar shook his head and clasped the wolf-hide surcoat closed. Before he finished, Delly was at his side, tugging at one arm.
"Don't go," she pleaded.
Wulfgar stared down at her incredulously. "Orcs are in Mithral Hall. That cannot hold."
"Let Bruenor drive them out. Or better, let us thicken the walls before them, and leave them in empty chambers."
Wulfgar's expression did not straighten.
"We can go out the tunnels to Felbarr," Delly went on. "All of the clan. They'll be welcomed there. I heard Jackonray Broadbelt say as much when he was talking to the folk chased down from the northland."
"Perhaps many of those folk would be wise to go," Wulfgar admitted.
"Not one's intending to make Felbarr a home. They're all for Silverymoon and Everlund and Sundabar. Ye've been to Silverymoon?"
"Once."
"Is it as beautiful as they say?" Delly asked, and the sparkle in her eyes betrayed her innermost desire, showing it clearly to Wulfgar, whose own blue eyes widened at the recognition.
"We will visit it," he promised, and he knew, somehow, that «visiting» wasn't what Delly had in mind, and wouldn't be nearly enough to assuage her.
"What are you saying?" he demanded suddenly.
Delly fell back from the blunt statement. "Just want to see it, is all," she said, lowering her gaze to the floor.
"Is something wrong?"
"Orcs're in the hall. Ye said so yerself."
"But if no orcs were in the hall, you would still wish to go to Silverymoon, or Sundabar?"
Delly kicked at the stone, her hesitance seeming so completely out of character that the hair on the back of Wulfgar's strong neck began to bristle.
"What kind of life is a child to get if all she's seeing are her parents and dwarves?" Delly dared to ask.
Wulfgar's eyes flared. "Catti-brie had such an upbringing."
Delly looked up, her expression hardly complimentary.
"I have no time to argue about this," Wulfgar said. "They are bringing the juicer into position, and I will hold my place behind it."
"Cordio said ye shouldn't go."
"Cordio is a priest, and always erring on the side of caution regarding those he tends."
"Cordio is a dwarf, and wanting all who're able up there killing orcs," Delly countered, and Wulfgar managed a smile. He figured that if it were not for Colson, Delly would be marching out beside him to battle.
Or maybe not, he realized as he looked at her more closely, at the profound frown that was hidden just below the surface of her almost-impassive expression. He had hardly seen her since the conflict had begun, since they had separated on the road from Icewind Dale back to Mithral Hall. Only then did he realize how lonely she likely was, down there with dwarves too distracted by pressing issues to hold her and comfort her.
"We will go see Silverymoon when this is over. And Sundabar," he offered.
Delly looked back down, but gave a slight nod.
Wulfgar winced again, and it was from more than physical pain. He believed his own words and had no time for petty arguments. He walked over and bent low, stiffly, from the pain, to give Delly a kiss. She offered only her cheek for the peck.
By the time he had crossed out of the room, though, Wulfgar the warrior, son of Beornegar, son of Bruenor, a champion of Mithral Hall, had put Delly and her concerns out of his mind.
* * * * *
"We have breached the hall!" Tsinka shrieked.
Obould smirked at her, thinking that the shaman had forgotten how to speak without raising her voice several octaves. All around them, orcs cheered and hopped about, punching their fists in defiance. The grand entry hall was theirs, as well as a complex of rooms both north and south of that huge foyer. The eastern corridor had been sealed by heavy blocks, but if they had been able to breach the magnificent western doors of Mithral Hall, could any of them believe the impromptu barriers would pose any substantial obstacle?
Lines of orcs marched past, dragging dead companions out into Keeper's Dale where they were tossing them onto a gigantic pyre for burning. The line seemed endless! In the few minutes of battle in the hall, the rain of death from above and the stubborn defensive stance of the dwarves, more than three hundred orcs had died. Traps, including that devastating explosion, the source of which Obould was still to discern, had taken more than a score. What other tricks might Bruenor Battlehammer have in store, the orc king wondered. Was this entire section of Mithral Hall rigged to explode, like the mountain ridge up the northern cliff beyond Keeper's Dale?